On the topic of being different (aka suck less)

[Shawnosaurus]

Futurehermit has a cool idea here, but I didn't want to hijack his thread just to talk about some similar experiments I have tried. Keep in mind I am not a great civver by any means, but I am entertained at Noble level.

I figured out that I had some weaknesses in my Civ gameplay. So I created games that really put those weaknesses in my face. For example:

- I was always broke. So I learned about leaders that make good money and I played a game with the intent not of winning (although that would be a bonus) but of earning as much moola as possible.

- I was always last in power. It took a few games to try different leaders and get it working, but I forced myself to be a military giant. I had the goal of always being in the top of the power crowd. This one was really tough for me, but I learned a lot.

- My war skills sucked. So I played the Warlords barbarian scenario. Nothing like boiling the game down to only combat to make you learn. I actually really enjoyed the scenario and now I am better at war in my regular games.

- I was wishy-washy on culture. I always seemed to like the wonders and culture, but was never in cultural victory range. So I set out to win a game with just cultural victory. I left all victory options enabled so the AI could get their space race, but I only let myself try for cultural. I even won.

Currently, I have been trying to get a domination victory on a huge map with no success. But I have been getting closer and learning a lot along the way. If I manage to pull that one off I am going to try and win by only diplomacy.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my little system of trying to round out my skills and style. What are some ways you have tried to correct your weaknesses or habits?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Nothing like boiling the game down to only combat to make you learn.

I'll have to look into that one. My experiments on those lines have been variations of Immortal/Raging Barbs/Always War/ just hold on for dear life sorts of things. "Oh, that's what the amphibious promotion is for!" was the big lesson.

What are some ways you have tried to correct your weaknesses or habits?

Rerolling openings after 50 turns or so. When I last went up a level I got the feeling that my opening play was really loose, so starting attacking random combinations of leaders and starts trying to identify the kinds of imbalances that favored each of the users, and how to leverage them.

 

[futurehermit]

Nice ideas, and important for beginners imo.

When I first started, I approached my games systematically. I never played through a whole game. I played until I felt I would most likely win or most likely lose. I focused on learning what everything does and improving different aspects of my game.

It worked great.

But I'm still learning things everytime I play.

Damn, this game is deep! It's GREAT

 

[carl corey]

Good ideas, Shawnosaurus. Some variations of them have been tried out in the Strategic Challenges - check the links in my profiles. The series seems to be on standby for now, but we'll probably resurrect it given some interesting propositions.

I'll especially recommend "Mini-Me" for how to wage total war with only a few cities (pretty impressive results and very fun to play), "Million Dollar Monty" for lots'o'$$$ and "Let's Get Cultural" for well, culture. I haven't played all of them myself, but those that I played and the things I read in all of them really helped my game.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Oops, forgot "write a Strategy Article".

 

[Sisiutil]

Oops, forgot "write a Strategy Article".

To that I would add, "post a series of games so everyone can point out what I'm doing wrong".

 

[Galileo44]

To cure myself of wonder addiction, I had to play an entire game on Emperor with no wonders. It's amazing, you really don't need to build them if you have 15 axes right next to Delhi when Gandhi builds the Pyramids.

 

[Landmonitor]

I'm making a painful transition to Monarch with many Dan Quayle scores piling up on my Hall of Fame and one thing that I have found essential is to constantly watch for technology. I try and "get inside the AI's head" and look at what they aren't willing to trade and more importantly, why in order to decide when to go for key techs (ie education to liberalism) and which ones to skip (I rarely research engineering for instance).

Anyway the point is, the biggest thing I've found, besides only building buildings that I need and will benefit from, is to keep a vigilant eye on the tech trading scene. That and efficient money deals (8-9 gpt usually) for resources to the right civs in order to cultivate relationships. Basically, diplomacy became much more important... maintaining a tech lead has become much less feasible for me.... Galileo44, you're on Emperor now, what do you think?

 

[Galileo44]

Another thing is not trading every tech you have to backfill. Although this might save you time early, you will run into the WFYABTA limit very quickly. Learning when to trade what is important. Like don't trade the GNP leader AI education and philosophy until you get liberalism.

 

[carl corey]

To cure myself of wonder addiction, I had to play an entire game on Emperor with no wonders. It's amazing, you really don't need to build them if you have 15 axes right next to Delhi when Gandhi builds the Pyramids.

I'm still not fully cured, but I've played a game with the no world wonders "rule" with Cyrus before the patch. It was especially painful when I had Ironworks in a city filled with floodplains and could build Eiffel Tower in something like 5 turns... But I managed.

 

[ratrangerm]

I've learned several things during the course of my gameplay:

* You don't have to build every single building in every city and the importance of city specialization.
* Learning that building Wonders needs to tie in with your strategy.
* Knowing that it's important to secure land, but to be careful not to do it too quickly. Pace yourself and remember, at some point after you stop expanding, you will want to expand some more, whether it's building more settlers or taking over other cities.
* Using catapults. I ignored them completely in Civ III because they just seemed useless. Now they are a much more important part of combat.
* Keeping tabs on the diplomacy screens, so you know what techs are available for trade and how relations are between other nations.

I've done pretty well on Noble and have spent a few games on Prince level just getting my feet wet and getting an idea of how initial gameplay goes. I've noticed in my Prince games that I've started on that strategic resource placement tends to have such resources placed further from your starting position (at least that's been my experience... it may not have anything to do with difficulty level).

I'm hoping to actually sit down and play a Prince level game this weekend and see how well I can do.

 

[KMadCandy]

i was really bad at knowing who hates who and picking a friend and not trading with their enemies.

so i played at an easier level and on a bigger map with more civs than i usually do, simply to focus on that aspect. i hit F4 a lot more than i usually do, and i did learn a lot about what i'd been doing wrong. i reloaded from saves, even when things did go my way , just to see how the order of talking to the civs mattered, stuff like that.

before that game i hadn't even known that if someone asks you to convert to X religion, you can do it, and then keep the + modifier even if you change back later. i used to just always say no, since i thought you had to keep it or they'd drop the +1. that game i said yes a lot more than i usually do (on an easier level, they weren't demanding really dangerous things like my normal games anyway), and watched the +s add up.

i got a bunch (all maybe?) of the religions that game, and used them to make us not one big happy buddhist family on purpose. the two civs i planned to kill first, i used missionaries to get them to go conf and jewish while the rest of us were hindu. a really nifty trick, but i'd never had the chance to actually put the effort into it in a normal, much harder game.

it was really helpful. i used to grrrrrr out loud when someone asked me for a tech or money. now i'm like 'come on izzy, ask me for help so i give it and stay positive with you until it's your turn to die.'

so, at least for me, even turning down your difficulty 2 or 3 notches to focus on one aspect can improve your real games.

 

[Breunor]

Damn, this game is deep! It's GREAT

Great Summary!

Breunor

 

[Landmonitor]

Another thing is not trading every tech you have to backfill. Although this might save you time early, you will run into the WFYABTA limit very quickly. Learning when to trade what is important. Like don't trade the GNP leader AI education and philosophy until you get liberalism.

Thank you, that's a really good point. I"ve been seeing this happen in my current Monarch game and I've been relentlessly backfilling. I think you just put me a step closer to losing my Monarch paranoia (and a step closer to gaining Emperor paranoia!)

 

[Spammurabi]

I've been pretty crummy at ancient era warfare- unless I have praetorians, I generally don't seriously go to war until I have Cavalry. So, I've been playing through all the Warlords Scenarios and learning how to handle low-tech units with mostly undeveloped cities. I think I'm finally beginning to understand why people like catapults so much.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

i got a bunch (all maybe?) of the religions that game, and used them to make us not one big happy buddhist family on purpose. the two civs i planned to kill first, i used missionaries to get them to go conf and jewish while the rest of us were hindu. a really nifty trick, but i'd never had the chance to actually put the effort into it in a normal, much harder game.

Hmm... now there's a good tip. Thank you.

 

[cabert]

good thread

I didn't spend much efforts in the learning process, I mostly finish all the games I start. But I used a cheap trick to learn fast (+I read a lot of the SGs, especially the RB series) when I was stuck at prince level :
I tried again and again the same prince level game (GotM 2, no submission of course, since I replayed it).
After a while of "useless" (meaning no significant improvement) efforts, I copycated hendrickzoon's spoiler.
It remained my highest score for quite a while, although I only managed 1/4 of his score . After that, I never looked back and won all my prince games.
I had another hard time, climbing up to monarch, but this time, I simply tried again and again one game, not needing any help. It was just a matter of timing things, seeing how it went on some issues (health, happiness, production, techs) and using what I learned before to a new extent.

I must say that playing some scenarios/challenges help to focus on some specific issues.
I played desert war (vanilla), and learned a lot about modern warfare (navy and planes).
I played the Alexander scenario (boring one!) and learned a lot about all out war (= techs? what do you want techs for? just build units!).
I played the wonder challenge, and learned a lot about GPersons crazyeye: yep, this challenge wasn't really about production, more about lightbulbing the right techs and earning a few GE)

 

[Stolen Rutters]

i got a bunch (all maybe?) of the religions that game, and used them to make us not one big happy buddhist family on purpose. the two civs i planned to kill first, i used missionaries to get them to go conf and jewish while the rest of us were hindu. a really nifty trick, but i'd never had the chance to actually put the effort into it in a normal, much harder game.

I found a similar tactic, but it involved being first to open borders and getting a religion fast. I went for writing and had a neighbor pick up one of the religions. I picked up another religion and went trade routes/open borders with my selected friends. My religion spread through their lands before the other religion could get in. edit - "Trade routes" spread religions and you can open borders to send in missionaries first.

None of the other neighbors had a religion and I grabbed theocracy and Christianity from a great prophet (I could have gone philosophy if I got a Great scientist, though). Nobody had trade routes with the religous civ yet. (I can't remember if I traded my way to fill in the religious techs so Theocracy was next on the list or if they were just in commerce poor starts compared to me...

Don't try to establish trade connections to players you want to deny access to your religion. Only open borders and send missionaries with nations you want to have your religion (i.e. your future friends).

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Open borders spread religions.... Don't try to establish trade connections to players you want to deny access to your religion. Only open borders with nations you want to have your religion (i.e. your future friends).

It doesn't work like that.

Cities can be deliberately converted with missionaries; if you are first to open borders, then you can get your missionaries in first, which gives you a head start if you have the production capacity to spare.

But with regard to magic conversions, the question is whether or not the target city is on the same trade network as the holy city. Closed borders don't interfere (but WAR does).

But even that isn't enough. One of the stranger combinations I've seen was Hinduism (IIRC) spreading to the human player in an always war game. One of the human players cities got connected to Dehli, and the religion spread to him even though he hadn't yet met Gandhi (oddly enough - even this didn't do it, since Reli-G was running some other religion at the time).

Edit: I don't recall correctly. Gandhi was Hindu, which is why he didn't declare war when Samarquand converted to Tao. Source: discussion of LKendter's Epic 9 report

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Ah, that was what did it. I opened borders and sent one missionary in to speed up the spread... so I could have just closed the borders back up and let the religon spread internally in the other civs? Good to know, good to know. I thought keeping the borders open helped out. That actually helps the strategy. I won't necessarily even need a trade route if I get missionaries out fast enough.